Thanks to Dan Stojadinovic and Hype Free for organizing a great internet marketing lead generation bootcamp and mastermind in Tampa

Posted on February 22, 2011 by Taylor Garland

Thanks Dan, as always, you way-overdelivered, and did it without a bunch of hype and sales pitches from the speakers. It was an honor to speak at the bootcamp, and not only that, but I picked up as much great info and nuggets at this one as I did at the last 3! Also, the mastermind on Monday was very beneficial to me for clarifying my high level strategy and crystallizing exactly how I want to execute it. Thanks to everyone at the Mastermind for their enthusiasm, openness and “team spirit”! If you’re lucky enough to be invited to one of Dan’s Hype Free Masterminds, it has my 100% endorsement and hopefully I will see you there someday.

Making it happen,

Taylor

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I’m Speaking Today at Dan Stojadinovic’s Hype Free Lead Generation Bootcamp in Tampa!

Posted on February 19, 2011 by Taylor Garland

Just a quick note to let you know that I’ll be speaking later today at the Hype Free Lead Generation Bootcamp in Tampa, FL.

My topic will be integrating offline and online marketing for any small business in any niche… even if you consider yourself a “traditional bricks & mortar” business…

If you’re interested in watching the seminar live right from the comfort of your own home, you can watch the streaming live video at:

http://www.hypefreebootcamp.com

Enjoy!

Taylor

Taylor Garland

Founder, Make It Happen Marketing

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Announcing A 1-Day Seminar For Tampa / St. Petersburg / Sarasota Area Business Owners, CEOs, Marketers and Entrepreneurs: 10 PROVEN WAYS TO GET 100 GREAT CUSTOMERS IN 6 MONTHS [Small Business Marketing That Works]

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Taylor Garland

Taylor Garland’s Make It Happen Marketing Presents…

Turbocharge Your Business With a Special Day of Education at Tampa’s International Plaza

10 PROVEN WAYS TO GET 100 GREAT CUSTOMERS IN 6 MONTHS

…in any industry, and whether you have an online or offline business.

Dynamic Local Marketer and Business Owner Taylor Garland and 3 Special Guest Speakers Will Reveal the Marketing Strategies and Tools You Need To Make The “Great Recession” A Distant Memory…

Register for 10 PROVEN WAYS TO GET 100 GREAT CUSTOMERS IN 6 MONTHS [Small Business Marketing for Owners, CEOs, Marketers and Entrepreneurs in the Tampa Bay Area] in Tampa, FL on Eventbrite

Executive Summary

  • Event held in the Private Banquet Room at BRIO’s Tuscan Grille, International Plaza in Tampa
  • 10 proven small business marketing strategies revealed, including steps and resources
  • “Brick & mortar” and online marketing strategies covered; strategies apply to both “brick & mortar” and e-commerce businesses
  • 200+ page bound Notes & Resources binder is yours to keep
  • Internet connection provided free of charge
  • Complimentary breakfast, lunch, and coffee service provided by Brio’s Italian Grille
  • Bring a friend or business associate for FREE
  • Lifetime online access to the PowerPoint notes and video recordings
  • 90 days of complimentary access to Taylor Garland’s Monthly Video Training Club
  • No upsells, just great information
  • Complimentary signed copy of Taylor Garland’s new book The Clever Capitalist
  • 100% “In Plain English” guarantee (no technical/computer knowledge needed)
  • 100% money back guarantee
  • This Special 1-Day Event Is Dedicated To Bringing Today’s Most Effective, Proven Marketing Strategies and Resources To Businesses That Are Ready To Reach The Next Level

Who Should Attend?

Business owners, CEOs, marketing professionals and entrepreneurs in any industry, whether they are a “bricks & mortar” OR online business, and whether or not they have technical skills or marketing experience.

Register for 10 PROVEN WAYS TO GET 100 GREAT CUSTOMERS IN 6 MONTHS [Small Business Marketing for Owners, CEOs, Marketers and Entrepreneurs in the Tampa Bay Area] in Tampa, FL on Eventbrite

Proven, High-ROI Strategies Will Be Revealed Step-By-Step, Including…

  • Massively increasing your referral rates from existing customers and fans
  • Integrating your online, offline and on-site marketing for exponential results
  • Connecting with your prospects and customers in an irresistible way
  • Transforming your customer experiences from “good” to fantastic
  • Reinforcing your brand and attracting new customers with low-cost, high-return video marketing
  • Marketing with social media in a way that actually makes money (including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for small business marketing)
  • Building your customer list (mailing address and/or email address) and using it for maximum effect so it doesn’t “go cold”
  • Uncovering the secrets of effective postcard marketing for small businesses (In most cases, less is actually more…)
  • Dramatically increasing your conversion rates from in-store visitors, website visitors, and phone calls to paying customers
  • Tapping the awesome power of Google Places (Local and Maps) and other local review sites to reach relevant, hot prospects while they are searching for your products/services
  • Blogging effectively in 15 minutes a week, and having fun doing it
  • Measuring your marketing funnel at each of its stages, and effectively tracking performance metrics, without giving yourself a headache
  • Finding and implementing mutually beneficial “no brainer” partnerships with other businesses to instantly add new customers to your business
  • Getting other people to sell your products and services for you, without having to hire and train more salespeople or invest in real estate and trade shows
  • Finding great outsourcers in the U.S. or abroad, to keep your overhead low and your employees focused on your customers

With My No Risk, 100% Money Back Guarantee, This Is One Business Decision You WON’T Be Losing Any Sleep Over

Register for 10 PROVEN WAYS TO GET 100 GREAT CUSTOMERS IN 6 MONTHS [Small Business Marketing for Owners, CEOs, Marketers and Entrepreneurs in the Tampa Bay Area] in Tampa, FL on Eventbrite

Thank you for your interest in Taylor Garland’s special “10 Ways” 1-Day educational event!

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[Video tip] – How to choose high quality, effective Apps for your business Facebook Page

Posted on February 12, 2011 by Taylor Garland

Hi, Taylor Garland here,
Hope you’ve been well… I’ve been getting a lot of questions about Facebook Apps lately – specifically, folks are wondering how to choose between the thousands of Apps now available.
Click the following link for a little video I made that shows exactly how to find Apps, and also explains what you should be looking for in an App. (No, tall, dark and handsome are NOT good criteria for Facebook Apps!)
Hope you enjoy! Feel free to forward to a friend/associate if it could help them…
Best,
Taylor
Taylor Garland
MAKE IT HAPPEN MARKETING
Small Business Marketing That Works
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My Secret Elixir for Social Media Writer’s Block

Posted on February 4, 2011 by Taylor Garland

Aloha…

Writer’s block.

It’s the worst.

If you’re doing the marketing for your business, no doubt you are occasionally (or hopefully frequently) writing things. Newsletters, coupons, specials, trade show materials, advertisements, job postings, loan applications, thank you notes, email marketing… and the list goes on…

So why is it that writing a 140-character “tweet” or a 2-sentence Facebook status update can sometimes make even the Hemingways of marketing drop to their knees with an agonizing case of writer’s block?

In most cases, I think it’s a combination of 3 things:

1. Not being really clear on the objective of these little messages
2. Underestimating the effectiveness of those “silly little status updates” in building customer relationships
3. Trying to write them too often in little bursts

So, here’s my “secret elixir” for social media writers block. Apply liberally, unless otherwise directed by a physician:

* For 1 week, carry around an index card and scribble tiny little notes to yourself whenever you come across a tip, article, opinion, topic, etc. that could be helpful to your customers or prospects. Unless you’re driving! No writing & driving! (Hey Oprah, are you with me or what?)

* After you’ve accumulated “a bunch” of little scribbles on your index card, you’re going to list them in a simple text editor on your computer. For PC users, the application you want is called Notepad. For all of you highly intelligent and good-looking Mac users out there (ahem ahem), you’ll be using a program called TextEdit.

* Open up a blank new file in your text program. The reason we’re using a simple text editor instead of Microsoft Word or Mac’s Pages is that we do not want any funny formatting or font commands to transfer into our social media. We just want letters and punctuation… (I’m writing this email in TextEdit for that very reason. Keeps it simple and hassle-free.)

* Okay, now list out your scribbles, one topic on each line. Just a few words each for now.

* Now, go to your calendar and block out a couple of hours some time when you’re not really squeezing it in to your schedule. If it has to be a week out, so be it, no problem. We’re not in a hurry here. We’re trying to do it right, the first time, so you get some high quality social media messages done.

NOTE: if you HATE writing or if you just gave birth to octuplets and literally have NO TIME, I would recommend finding a writer on craigslist.org or odesk.com (I like odesk better than elance lately, by the way.) You should be able to get decent social media posts written for 25-50 cents each. Make sure you ask for samples of their prior work before hiring them, and look for someone familiar with your industry so they can put themselves in your customers’ shoes and write relevant and interesting posts from the little blurbs you give them.

* When you’re writing (or giving instructions to others to write for you), here are some style tips:

- Keep it short (people like to skim/scan social media posts)
- Make it interesting and/or entertaining and/or super relevant to the audience
- Don’t let anger or frustration show through, it turns off more people than it attracts
- Make most of your messages helpful information, not sales or related to your business (at least 2/3 of your content should NOT be commercial/selling in nature)
- Have fun with it. Don’t write like a boring robot. Nobody likes boring. :)

* Now, every morning with your coffee/tea/mimosa, copy and paste one social media post from your list to Facebook or Twitter or wherever you’re trying to find customers.

* Once a month, rinse and repeat this process!

Hope that helped! My fingers hurt! :)

Taylor

Taylor Garland
President
Make It Happen Marketing

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Top 5 All-Time Facebook Questions (and The Answers) from My Live Webinars

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Taylor Garland

Hi, Taylor Garland here,

Here’s something I never would have come upon if it weren’t for those Q&A follow up webinars… After people buy my “Facebook Profits for Business” home study course course, we invite them to a live Q&A webinar that I hold every few weeks. On this webinar, people are allowed to ask any question they want about Facebook marketing (or anything else for that matter) and I answer it right then and there.

Over time it’s become a huge benefit to our customers because they are able to quickly overcome any hurdles, questions, bumps in the road, etc. so they don’t get “stuck in the mud”. Pretty cool, huh?

Well, under the heading of “Why Not, Let’s Share The Love”, I’ve assembled this list for you of the Top 5 most common questions people ask, and my answers to them (by the way, feel free to share this email with a buddy if you want to):

******************
Top 5 Facebook Marketing Questions From Business Owners and Entrepreneurs
******************

1. Should I make a Page or a Group for my business?

Okay, here’s the deal with Pages and Groups. First of all, a Page is for a business/brand and a Group is for a common interest/topic. So, you would have a Page for “Chevrolet” and a Group for “Car Enthusiasts”.

Therefore, if you have a business, you should have a Page, because if you don’t have one, people will not be able to find you, and you will lose credibility in the sense that people will think you don’t know what you’re doing when it comes to social media marketing.

Sorry to be blunt, but at this point, with 550 million users, and the average user coming to Facebook twice/day, you pretty much have to have a Page just for convenience sake of all those users. They don’t want to have to open up a new browser window and find you on Google Maps or whatever – if they’re already on Facebook, they just want to type in your business name in the search bar at the top and instantly find you. (Which is good for you too!)

In conclusion, every business should have a Page. Then, after you’ve got your Page looking good and you’re comfortable using Facebook for your business, you could set up a Group or Groups or you could get involved in other Groups related to your industry as a way to stay on top of your niche and also attract leads to your Facebook Page/website/blog/etc.

2. What Apps should I add?

Well, there’s a company called WildFire that makes a lot of high quality Apps that have been downloaded millions of times by all kinds of businesses. Bottom line is that you should add whatever App or Apps will directly help you attract more people or enhance the user experience for your Page’s fans, visitors, etc. You could have Coupons, Refer-A-Friend, Games, Quizzes, Contests, Etc…

One cool thing is that you can see how popular Apps are so you can stay away from really new ones and not be a guinea pig while various developers work out the bugs. Good apps are generally paid (not free) but they’re not expensive. You’re going to spend SOME amount of money for leads if you value your time at all… maybe anywhere from 5 cents/lead to 5 dollars/lead depending on your industry, product, conversion rate, and lifetime customer value. So, don’t worry about a one time fee of $25 for an App that looks perfect for your business. Just get it and implement some marketing with it!

One example of an App that almost any business could use is called “Coupon”. And, well, as you probably guessed by now, it is a nice, templated way for you to have coupons, and have them be shared, by people on Facebook. How’s that for turbocharged referral marketing? (Answer: awesome.)

To search for Apps, just type Applications in the search bar at the top of Facebook, then click “See all results” at the bottom of the automatic drop down menu. From there you can see and previous TONS of Apps that can do all kinds of great things on your Page.

Facebook Apps, used properly, are like little soldiers that go find customers and money and bring it to you. Have fun building your army!

3. How do I add a custom welcome tab (landing tab) to my Page?

Ahhhhh yes, all that stuff about “Static FBML” and “custom landing tabs.” Here’s the real skinny, bolied down as much as I possibly can:

- First, type in “Static FBML” in the search bar at top of Facebook
- Click on this App and click “Add to Page”
- Once added, visit your Page
- You’ll see a new, blank tab titled “FBML”
(Note that FBML is Facebook’s cute little name for HTML code that works inside Facebook – Face Book Markup Language – get it?! Anyway, it’s pretty much just HTML code. FBML code can be created by any web programmer/developer worth her salt, so go to craigslist.org or odesk.com and tell ‘em what you need. Should cost $50-75 for the FBML code for a sweet custom Facebook tab.)
- Then, take the FBML code that you had created by your tech person, and paste it into the big blank tab called “FBML”.
- You an also rename it “Welcome” instead of “FBML” (just click on the tab label)
- Then, go to your page and make sure it looks good. If not, get it tweaked by your programmer until it looks the way you want (but remember, good enough is good enough for marketing!)
- Finally, go to Edit Page (which is listed under your Page’s profile image) and set the Landing Tab as your “Welcome” tab so that visitors see this tab first!

Now, you’re looking really, really legit when people find you on Facebook… Not just the same boring blue & white like 99% of Facebook Pages!

4. Do I need a separate Facebook account for my business? And can I have more than one Facebook Page?

Nope, no separate account needed. Your business Page will be part of your Facebook account, just like your personal Profile. Just log in to your regular Facebook account, and type “create new facebook page”, then click on the official “Create New Facebook Page” result that shows up. From there, Facebook will walk you through the basic steps of setting up a Page.

By the way, you can create as many Pages and Groups as you want from your account.

5. I already make a lot of updates to my blog. Is there some way I can have them come in to my Page automatically?

Yes! Thank goodness there is!

What you will do is pull an RSS feed from your blog right into your Facebook Page.

Here’s how:

http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=23798139265

Click on that link above and you’ll be taken to the App “Social RSS” – which is an easy way to pull your blog’s RSS feed to your Facebook Page. Just follow their simple instructions! It’s a really popular and well-tested App, and is easy to use.

I hope you enjoyed the Top 5 Q&A…

Wishing you all the best with your marketing,

Your bud,

Taylor

Taylor Garland
Make It Happen Marketing Education
http://FacebookProfitsForBusiness.com

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Need a business speaker in the Tampa Bay Area? Looking for JV/Affiliate Marketing opportunities?

Posted on December 12, 2010 by Taylor Garland

For more information about booking me as a speaker for your business audience, check out the new page on my blog:

http://themakeithappenguy.com/speaking

And, if you’re looking for JV or affiliate marketing opportunities, including speaking, webinars, info products, etc., check out this new page on my blog:

http://themakeithappenguy.com/jv

Thanks! :)

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Mark Zuckerberg Web 2.0 Interview About Facebook Messages Platform

Posted on November 18, 2010 by Taylor Garland

If you missed it, here’s that new Mark Zuckerberg interview about Facebook Messages. What do you think? Gmail killer or just super sweet chat while you’re on Facebook?

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A few key takeaways from Hype Free Internet Marketing & JV Bootcamp in Tampa

Posted on November 16, 2010 by Taylor Garland

It seems like every time I get together with folks who teach and train others about business and online marketing, there are some consistent themes that emerge. Here are a few that come to mind after speaking at, and being on an experts panel, at the Hype Free Bootcamp in Tampa:

* Everybody hits barriers, frustrations, etc. The key thing is hacking away at them one step at a time and not giving up.

* Unless you absolutely can’t afford it, if you’re not great at it or don’t enjoy it, OUTSOURCE IT!

* Good enough is good enough. You will get so much more relevant feedback by implementing things in the real world than you ever will thinking about them.

* A lot of “internet marketing” training products are hype, created by people that haven’t ever tried to implement what they teach in the real world. (That’s what’s great about Hype Free Bootcamp – it’s real people!) Anyway, know that you’ve got to provide some real value and create legit content if you want to do anything worthwhile online.

* You don’t have to be a technical genius to use most of the effective online tools today (Facebook, YouTube, WordPress, etc.) It’s a wonderful thing!

:)

Hope that helps you in your journey. Till next time, keep Making It Happen online!

Taylor

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Do you know the HIDDEN POWER of uploading and tagging photos on Facebook?

Posted on October 13, 2010 by Taylor Garland

Hi – Here’s a quick video I just put up on my YouTube Channel explaining how to upload and tag photos on Facebook, and also why it’s important to do that to grow your business and exposure on Facebook! Hope you enjoy!

- Taylor

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